In response to a recent Joni post, PK commented by asking some very important questions. I don’t pretend to have the answers, but will individually tackle them later this week. So that you can think about them, here they are. (PK is the proprietor of the fab blog LOOSE POODLE.)
1) What IS the difference between “song writing” and “composing”? Are they the same act to be lumped together as one?
2) (related) How does the writing of text (not often associated with “composers”) change the process, and as can be asked about the visuals in film music, does the text dominate the music?
3) Why do so many artists have periods of such great and simple strength (so often in youth) that diffuses in later years (although the theoretical constructs may become greater)? Not a great question for those of us north of the mid-point, but interesting never the less.
I’ve installed Google Analytics on this blog to see a variety of statistics. Rest assured I never know who is reading this unless you post, and only then if you’ve given my your real name.
85% of my readers go right to rogerbourland.com or redblackwindow.com (the latter forwards to the former). Following that majority, here are the top posts that people have visited in the last 5 months.
Composer William Kraft (Bill) and I were having lunch one day at the UCLA Faculty Center. Half way through a bite of his sandwich (teachers and composers ALWAYS talk with their mouths full) he bolted and said “Roger, I have a new mode I’ve been working with. It’s terrific, it has so many great qualities. Kinda tonal, kinda not.” I responded “May I guess what the mode is?” He looked confused and skeptical. How could anyone know what mode I’ve been using? He’s just a young whippersnapper from Harvard. “Ok, sure try to guess.” I enumerated the notes of the mode: “C D E F# G A Bb.” He was shocked. “Damn, how did you know? That’s the spookiest thing I’ve experienced all day!”
As human brains evolved their ability to perceive vibrations in the atmosphere as sound, and then as pitch, they evolved the ability to hear timbre, or musical color. The timbre is the element that differentiates one voice from another, whether it be another human, or a musical instrument. One of the quantifiable ways that our minds perceive timbre is by the sonic “aura” that hovers above every pitch made by an orchestral instrument (This is not true for metallophones, bells, gongs, cymbals etc.). This gorgeous aura sounds in varying intensities, depending on the sound source. This aura is commonly called the overtone series, or harmonics, or partials, or Nature’s scale, or formants.
(The notes in parenthesis mean that they do not correspond exactly with our commonly used tuning system.) If you take the fundamental and the first 13 partials you roughly have a dominant 7th chord with a sharp 11th. In the example below you’ll see, from left to right, the Lydian flat-7 mode, a secondal cluster made from that scale, a much loved C13th chord spelled tertially, and Alexander Scriabin’s famous “Mystic chord.”
Rufus Wainwright’s early song “Damned Ladies” has a magical chord progression that is so exotic I am shocked at its simplicity: a deceptive resolution from V7/IV to V7, and not just V7, a lydian flat-7 infused V7. (Below is an audio clip, a piano-vocal transcription, and the modal and chordal underpinnings of the passage.)
The lydian flat-7mode is also used by Stravinsky, Ravel, Debussy, and me. The mode has been “in the air” for a while, so my guess at Bill’s “new mode” wasn’t so hard. In that it’s in the overtone scale, perhaps it’s hard-wired into our brains.
I’ve had more thoughts on “You’ve got to Hide your love away” since I posted a video of their performance in the movie HELP! a few days ago.
This is yet another one of Lennon’s famous songs about love. He wrote about love throughout his entire career. The song appears to me to be about Brian Epstein. John’s Dylan-esque folk song is really a song about gay acceptance. John yells “Hey!” like a command and in the same spirit he screamed “momma don’t go, daddy come home” and “help!” and “I’m a loser” and “God” with its long litany of things he doesn’t believe in. Whether this song is a yelling out of “don’t touch me faggot” from John to Brian knowing that Brian was attracted to him, or, more likely, John is preaching to society that this kind of intolerance is unacceptable, there is a passion and power in this song that I never realized was there. The music was always profound to me, the words were just, well, the words.
The chords of this song have always been haunting. After learning to play the banjo, I now understand why. There is an open G string on the banjo that usually plays with chords whether it fits or not. That is why bluegrass banjo music sounds the way it does. Lennon does the same thing here but he doesn’t use a banjo. Instead, he adds the G drone to every chord in the song until just before he yells “hey!” at the chorus. There is also a very rich guitar sound with John on his 12-string and George on his 6-string. Paul’s Hofner bass blends especially well here. Ringo is a rock and keeps an offbeat tamborine strike throughout.
The harmonic progression offers some clever twists in the realm of harmony. Flat-7 feature prominently here. IV likes to rock back in forth in, V likes to be dramatic and jump to IT before going to where it should have gone (I). The harmonic rhythm moves by dotted quarters, except just before the chorus where the V marches down to the I coinciding with and pumping the word “hey!”
There is one of the most heart-breaking 9-8 suspensions in music when John sings “hide your…” in the chorus.
The uptight woman and the weirdo coming up from the manhole cover are just silly nonsense having nothing to do with anything the song might be about. John seems to be truly in touch with the sensitive nature of this song and seems in many places, on the verge of tears. Richard Lester, whom I assume directed this, cut silly, cutesy cutaways to Paul and George each having expressions that bely the seriousness of the lyrics. The performance is a lipsyced, but the spirit of the song still comes through, mostly through Lennon’s wail, the dissonant clanging of the guitars, and Ringo’s ever-faithful tambourine.
Every once in a while, a song comes into your life and it colors your entire season, say summer. And whenever you hear this song, you go back to that place. Allow me to highly recommend a song that will take you over and be your soundtrack for a few weeks, if not months: “Dance Me to the End of Love” by Leonard Cohen. I’m afraid I got to know it first through Madeleine Peyroux’s thrilling Billie Holiday reincarnation. Listen:
BUY IT! It’s a great interpretation of the original and so easy to slip into.
The next interpretation of the song is an offering by my old classmate, Hankus Netzky and The Klezmer Conservatory Ensemble from the New England Conservatory of Music (1976-7). It is a PERFECT piece for their terrific group. In fact, if I have to put my finger on what the song ‘musically’ IS, I’d call it the Jewish Blues. The chord changes are roughly the same as the traditional blues changes. The angst of the songs lies in the falling, aching apoggiaturas that impale themselves upon every new chord.
TKCE thought so highly of this song, they named their album after it. This performance is pregnant to become a title song for a movie, and make these cats a LOT of money. They deserve it. Take a listen:
And now, let’s watch the master. This was the video that was apparently made at the time of the song’s release. (Where did it show? I sure never saw this on MTV or VH1.)
So, do yourself a favor and buy a version of this that you like, or buy them all as I did. You’ll find a handful of others available, but they seem perfunctory and not at the same level as either the original or these two terrific interpretations.
In 1966, rock and roll invaded classical music’s personal space by including orchestras, string quartets, oboes, and harpsichords in their arrangements “Eleanor Rigby,” Joshua Rifkin’s “Baroque Beatles” as well as his arrangements for Judy Collins were all co-existing at this time. There was also a short-lived group called The Left Banke who managed to put out two significant singles: “Walk Away Renee” and “Pretty Ballerina.”
Forty years before Rufus Wainwright’s music was inaccurately called baroque-pop, this group was also labeled baroque pop. This is a song I’ve always liked but have never analyzed. So, I’ve included the lyrics with a formal analysis, and a short hand transcription of the song with straightforward annotation. Let’s look and see whether “baroque pop” is an accurate appellation.
Walk Away Renee
Verse 1: A
And when I see the sign that points one way
The light we used to pass by every day
Chorus 1: B Just walk away Renee,
You won’t see me follow you back home
The empty sidewalks on my
block are not the same
You’re not to blame
Verse 2: A From deep inside the tears that I’m forced to cry
From deep inside the pain I, I chose to hide
Chorus 2: B
Just walk away, Renee
You won’t see me follow you back home
Now, as the rain beats down upon my weary eyes,
For me, it cries
Verse 3: A Now as the rain beats down
Upon my weary eyes For me it cries
Solo/Bridge: C
Chorus 2: B
Verse 3: A Your name and mine inside
a heart upon a wall
Still finds a way to haunt me,
though they’re so small
Chorus: 1B
Calling the verse A, the chorus B, and the solo/bridge C, the form is:
FORM
The verses and choruses are orchestrationally identical. The only eccentric moment is the flute solo (C) where the music seems similar to the verse, it is in reality a contrasting bridge. This is peculiar because bridges usually are sung, soloists usually improvise on some stretch of music already heard, but here it carries a double contrast of a flute solo (we had not heard one up to now, why now?), and a whole new section with a new progression (too bad you didn’t write another set of lyrics to go here instead of the flute solo). This is the song of an 18-year old kid from New York (Michael Brown, born Michael Lookofsky) who supposedly had some classical training. (I can’t find any details, but there are several websites that can fill you in on the group, and its alpha male, Brown.)
MELODY
Glance through the transcription and see that the a theme and its progeny permeate the song. It is not so much developmental in the Classical or Romantic sense, but the melody is organic in that most of it springs from the opening melodic figure (a). The song’s most blatant nod to the Baroque period is the falling chromatic bass melody in the first eight bars.
HARMONY
I’ve chosen to call the chord at the end of the first phrase a II, over the imagined roar of disapproval from my theory colleagues (m.8). You want me to call it a V/V, but it doesn’t ever function this way in the song. It is, rather, a major chord built on the 2nd scale degree that borrows from a secondary dominant logic but refuses its function. The next eight bars betrays their rock roots in two 4-bar phrases of I vi IV V (the chord progression in most 50s pop songs; think “Heart and Soul”). Another interesting coincidence is that, the opening 8-bar phrase achieves a slower statement of the 4-bar I vi IV V phrases in the chorus.
The tasty choral harmonization in the B sections are reminiscent of the Byrds, and a bit of the Association. The held ‘a’ pedal in the middle voice offers a tasty and touching dissonance to the chorus.
If Mr. Brown had “classical training” I doubt that it was much. He likely knew some classical repertoire, but his work shows that he hadn’t studied traditional harmony. In this song, the drive toward the dominant works beautifully; I’m not convinced he knows what to do once he gets there (ms.6, 16-7). This turns out to be an asset and part of the song’s charm.
The obbligato string writing throughout, inserts effective voice leading and poignant dissonance that evokes a classical, ok, maybe baroque sound.
RHYTHM
(FYI: My transcription of the ‘a’ theme is rough. It is actually much closer to ‘a2′ rhythmically.) There are a few touches that make the rhythmic language of this song effective. All of the phrases are launched with a quarter rest. And once launched, the rhythmic emphasis shifts to offbeat quarters. The figure in measure 17 is the lead in figure for the song that serves double duty at drawing an AB section to a close. The composite rhythm of these two voices is a quarter followed by six 8th notes, and it is a hot little hook (m.17).
Baroque pop?
If you really need a label, well, ok. But just because a harpsichord plays does not mean the song is Baroque. Nor for that matter, a string quartet, which didn’t come to blossom until after the Baroque period. Like “Salty Dog” the opening falling chromatic bass reminds me of Purcells’s “Dido’s Lament” and the Bach b minor “Crucifixus” and many other pieces from the era. The awkward parallel octaves, the II – I chord progression, the almost country open/close figure add up to make the piece more pop than Baroque. Adding strings and harpsichord add a sophistication to the orchestration of the song but doesn’t take it out of 1966.
RECORDING SESSION CREDITS
“Walk Away Renee”
Drums: Al Rogers
Bass: John Abbott
Guitar: George (Fluffer) Hirsh
Harpsichord: Mike Brown
Strings: Harry Lookofsky & Friends
Flute: unknown session man
Arranger: John Abbott
Lead Vocal: Steve Martin Caro
Backing Vocals: George Cameron & Tom Finn
Engineer: Steve Jerome
Studio: World United NYC
Date: early (1966)
Produced By Harry Lookofsky, Steve Jerome, Bill Jerome
The hilarious part of this video is the flute solo. All of a sudden we start ascending into the sky. What’s happening? Is that a bird house? No, it’s the Virgin Mary, no. It’s. What? a UFO? No, it must be Renee! Is that REALLY Renee? The cute guy singing is Steve Martin Caro and the composer is the harpsichordist.
So obviously lip synced. Is that a baseball field they are on? The applause at the end makes me feel like I’m at a golf course.
When musicians describe music, very often they will refer to the “chords” that are sounding in or behind the musical texture. There are seven notes in a major scale, each one can have a 3-note chord on it, and our traditional music theory teachers teach us to call those entities “triads.” The most important triad defines the key, so if the first note of your tonic triad is C, the song is in C major, or c minor. This is the “I” chord or the tonic chord and it is comprised of the scale degrees 1 3 and 5, sounding together. As you zoom up the scale the triads are either major, minor, or diminished: the major is described using CAPITAL Roman numerals and minor/diminished use the lower case Roman numerals; the diminished has a little superscript degree symbol “º” next to it. So as we zip up the scale with parallel triads, they are called I ii iii IV V vi viiº. Cool eh? This tells you that I IV and V are all major chords, and ii iii and vi are all minor chords. viiº is diminished. The most important chords in the WORLD are I IV and V. Rock, country, classical, reggae, ska, polka, hip hop, rap, and … Well, nearly ALL western music used these chords. [There is much Asian music that does not use chords at all: traditional southern and northern Indian music, traditional Japanese, Chinese, Korean, etc. are not harmonically based.]
For you people who know traditional rock n roll, the song “Louie, Louie” demonstrates these three chords beautifully: I – IV – V – IV [repeat over and over]. Look at the first two measures below and listen to “Louie, Louie” not in reality, but in your inner ear. Press ‘play’ and watch these chords repeat over and over. And as you do, listen to the personality of each of these three chords.
And if you don’t know that song, I bet you know “Climb Every Mountain” from THE SOUND OF MUSIC. In your mind, listen to Julie Andrews singing these words. Now look at these three chords (I have not included the melody: you know it). Do it over and over until you hear this chord progression. You’ll hear the bass start on the 4th scale degree, go to the 5th, and then go “home” to the tonic or root, 1st scale degree.
Remember: chords accompany melody. The chords in the example above are not the actual voicing, just a short hand approximation of the notes.
How are chords expressed? The oldest chordal instruments I can think of would be the lyre and its relatives. They evolved into the harp and the lute, and continued evolving to include ukelele’s, bouzouki’s, guitars, banjos, mandolins, and so forth. My dates are fuzzy, but keyboards evolved from lap-held organs (harmonium) to today’s mega-organs, grand pianos, and of course, synthesizers. All these instruments can and do hold down, or repeat over and over, or arpeggiate (roll) chords to accompany a singer or a melody.
Here is an example of a hymn texture, specifically a Bach chorale. The texture is best described as 4-voices that, although somewhat independent, move en mass as chord progressions where the melody (soprano) is on top, the bass on the bottom, the tenor above him, and the alto below the soprano. What you see in handwriting around these chords is an exercise done all over the world by music students who “analyze” chord progressions. (By the way, the little subscript numbers next to the Roman numerals describe what note is in the bass or whether any additional notes need to be added to the triad.)
The ability to hear, and with any luck, compose using a full understanding of how chords work, or function, is what we teach musicians in school. It is NOT necessary to understand any of this in order to enjoy music. Does it ruin the music my listening too hard or knowing too much? No, but yes, if you play the song over and over until you can’t listen to it any longer.
I offer this post because I use the phrase “chord progression” a fair amount and I thought that it would be a good idea to define it. Simply put, it is a series of chords, or a “progression” that is either explicitly articulated by an instrument able to play chords, or is implicitly evoked by many instruments whose overall pitch material adds up to a chord.
“O Superman” was Laurie Anderson’s first big HIT: it made it to number 2 in the UK but didn’t do as well in America. Her music is marvelously in-the-cracks reminding me of Steve Reich, Lou Reed (her husband), David Byrne, and Joni Mitchell, but it would be an insult to say that she is only made up of her influences. She is a composer, an artist, a dramaturg, a performance artist, a musician, a poet, and a plastic artist. She is bubbling with expression and we are fortunate to have her with us as an ever-evolving artist. If you’ve never seen or heard her, buy some music, watch her movies, and see her concerts.
I first saw Laurie Anderson while a Masters student at Harvard in 1980. She gave a concert in Paine Hall. She was dressed completely in white; even her violin was painted white. She sat on the stage cross-legged, walked around, spoke and sang into microphones and seemed to play mostly half notes on the violin — it was thrilling. So naughty. She was one of “us” (meaning nerdy academic student composers) who “crossed over” into, well, fame. She said ’screw academia, I’m going out on my own’ and this of course is not so far from what her peers like Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Meredith Monk, and Philip Glass did. They all shunned academia and have flourished (mostly) as composers. That being pointed out, I was thrilled to see that Laurie is now Dr. Anderson after receiving an honorary doctorate from Columbia (where she had done some collegiate work).
There are a number of interesting things I’d like to point out in this song:
“O Superman” begins with a tiny clip of Laurie’s voice that is “looped” or repeated over and over as a steady eighth note pulse. The pulse goes throughout the entire song; think of it as a scaffolding, a click track or metronome, or the white lines on a highway. The pulsing C is concordant with every chord in the song: the Eb (I add-6), the Ab (IV), and the f (vi) and provides a rhythmic tactus that does not change through the entire song. The harmonic essence of this song is as follows:
Laurie is singing through a device invented by the US Government called a vocoder. Without getting overly technical, the voice (or other sound) through a microphone and then into the vocoder; the vocoder extracts the rhythmic utterances minus the sounds themselves. The formants in your mouth also shape the sound it is controlling. The utterances of your vocal cords, together with the “wa-wa” of the formant of how your mouth sounds speaking (we call it “words”), a “trigger” plays any sound making module, and in this case, a no-frills synthesizer.
You’ll notice there is another timbre besides her voice that is a part of the sound: it’s like a harmonic shadow or aura. In this case, when this song is performed live, she stands with a simple keyboard in front of her and two microphones: one attached to the vocoder, one is regular without any effects. (That way she doesn’t have to rely on a technician throwing a switch between the two effects from a mixing console.) She keeps her hand on the keyboard and oscillates largely between 2 chords — easy to do when her energies are better spent on delivering words, melody, attitude, and style.
Laurie is not what you call a virtuosic musician, or at least judging by her output, flashy technique is of no interest to her, her music is very much about the story, embued in beguiling melodies, with simple but unusually refreshing harmonic progressions.
Laurie floats back and forth between two chords: (A flat (IV) and c minor (vi)). Oscillation between these two chords is not common in classical music, and somewhat rare in pop music as well. One chord that is blatantly missing is the dominant (V): the chord progression, I – V – I is at the core of most tonal music throughout the world, but here there is no dominant. No dominant (V) and no secondary dominants (V/V), so through her chordal choices, Anderson, not unlike Erik Satie, is flipping off conventional functional harmony — refusing to bow to the traditionally accepted places chords are expected to go.
These two chords are heard triggered by Laurie’s voice via the vocoder to the synthesizer. Listen very carefully to her “voice” — it is a fusion of her real voice, and the formants in her mouth controlling the sound of the synthesizer. All that is required of her is holding down C and E flat through the whole piece, while her thumb shifts back and forth from the G to the Ab. So simple and so effective.
One other harmonic detail is worth pointing out: we only hear the tonic, E flat major, twice in the song. Both times it is the chord sounding under the title “O Superman.” Besides those two VERY brief appearances, the rest of the piece oscillates back and forth between IV and vi, avoiding completely the tyrany of I and V. The tonic was used like a turkey-baister pregnancy so that Laurie can live happily ever after without needing the tonic: ever. At this point we could argue about what key 99% of the song is in: A flat? or c minor in 2nd inversion? I choose to say that we DON’T modulate, and that we are just hanging, left abandoned, and unable to find our way back home. The coda at the very end is clearly in c minor, but that doesn’t dissuade my attraction to the tonal ambiguity. No one said I ever had to make up my mind… Here is a transcription I did of the opening music. Notice I’ve called her a “tenor” as that is really what the range is, ok, techically a contralto — bit she doesn’t sound like a contralto
Take a listen: this is not your typical pop song as it’s 8:30 long. K Duffy has a snappy analysis of the lyrics if you are interested, otherwise the video and lyrics are below.
O Superman
by Laurie Anderson, from “Big Science” (1981).
O Superman. O judge. O Mom and Dad. Mom and Dad.
O Superman. O judge. O Mom and Dad. Mom and Dad.
Hi. I’m not home right now. But if you want to leave a
message, just start talking at the sound of the tone.
Hello? This is your Mother. Are you there? Are you
coming home?
Hello? Is anybody home? Well, you don’t know me,
but I know you.
And I’ve got a message to give to you.
Here come the planes.
So you better get ready. Ready to go. You can come
as you are, but pay as you go. Pay as you go.
And I said: OK. Who is this really? And the voice said:
This is the hand, the hand that takes. This is the
hand, the hand that takes.
This is the hand, the hand that takes.
Here come the planes.
They’re American planes. Made in America.
Smoking or non-smoking?
And the voice said: Neither snow nor rain nor gloom
of night shall stay these couriers from the swift
completion of their appointed rounds.
‘Cause when love is gone, there’s always justice.
And when justive is gone, there’s always force.
And when force is gone, there’s always Mom. Hi Mom!
So hold me, Mom, in your long arms. So hold me,
Mom, in your long arms.
In your automatic arms. Your electronic arms.
In your arms.
So hold me, Mom, in your long arms.
Your petrochemical arms. Your military arms.
In your electronic arms.
There are some marvelous harmonic details in Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne.” It was Mark Carlson who pointed out to me that there is no dominant chord in the song. I was incredulous. He was right.
Look at the chart of the chord progression for the song. I laid out the harmonic analysis so that the line starts over every time the tonic (I) recurs. And was I surprised to find a perfect palindrome in the layout of the chords!
Young composers often attempt to write their first songs travelling up the scale: I ii iii IV and back, and it almost always sounds terrible. Cohen’s handling of the harmonic apex is brilliant, and only goes to the subdominant (IV), never the dominant (V). In this song, the harmonic syntax is this: I may go to ii or iii; ii goes to iii or I; iii only goes to IV; IV only goes to I.
Many of you know Judy Collins version of the song. That version is by Joshua Rifkin and is a thrilling and touching variation of the original. Here is the first verse of the Cohen original:
I discovered a gold mine of wonderful literature about the materials of popular music through soundscape.info. There is a lot of material from a musicological point of view, but I’m interested in finding the nitty gritty about notes, chords, form and such. Author and music theorist Elizabeth Marvin suggested I read Walter Everett’s two volume set about the Beatles which I’ve just ordered. So, this material should be excellent preparation for my book on Rufus Wainwright’s music.
It does not allay my concerns about why this is not taught in conservatories and music schools. All too often, the 20th (21st) century gets short shrift in music theory classes so that chant through Brahms can be taught. Considering most classical music theory classes don’t have enough time to teach Debussy through Thomas Ades, it is no wonder that popular music gets squeezed out. I can only surmise that pop music theory is not valued in the academy. It is already popular and doesn’t need explaining or promoting.
rss feed
In 1966, rock and roll invaded classical music’s personal space by including orchestras, string quartets, oboes, and harpsichords in their arrangements “Eleanor Rigby,” Joshua Rifkin’s “Baroque Beatles” as well as his arrangements for Judy Collins were all co-existing at this time. There was also a short-lived group called The Left Banke who managed to put out two significant singles: “Walk Away Renee” and “Pretty Ballerina.”
There are some marvelous harmonic details in Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne.” It was Mark Carlson who pointed out to me that there is no dominant chord in the song. I was incredulous. He was right.